Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA25592 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:45:34 GMT Message-Id: <200002231846.NAA00462@mail1.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:47:54 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #130 In-reply-to: <00022318023202.00570@faichney> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Reborn Technology
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #130
Date sent: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 17:56:32 +0000
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Joe E. Dees wrote:
> >> OK, forget the bit about individual words. But please explain why semantics
> >> cannot be considered encoded in language, and how, if it is not encoded,
> >> meaning gets conveyed from sender to receiver.
> >>
> >Of course semantics is encoded, but that does not negate
> >semantics itself as a necessary and essential component of
> >memesis.
>
> I'm not familiar with "memesis".
>
Memesis is memetics in action, occurring, happening. It
(memetics) can't happen without an intentional communication of
structurally encoded signification between transmitter and receiver.
>
> But I think you should consider the
> possibility that the major difference between us is semantic -- that I mean
> something different from "meme" and "memetics" than you do. The difference,
> I'd suggest, is very simply this: you view the meme as an item of intentional
> information, whereas I see it as an item of physical information. I don't want
> to "negate semantics itself" -- I consider it essential! But not to memetics,
> which is about pieces of information that replicate regardless of our
> perceptions and intentions. That does not invalidate these, it just means
> memetics is about something else! (Or at least at the fundamental level it is,
> though it can be built up, with other components, to the level at which we
> consciously operate, just as atoms can in principle be built up into tables and
> chairs.)
>
Impossible! Information must inform; that is, it must communicate
some meaning. Even semantics is structured (read STRUCTURAL
SEMANTICS by A. J. Greimas if you have any doubts on this
score. meaning-alternatives fall naturally into a semiotic square,
which is kinda like the Aristotelian square, so that the intersection
of human intention and intended meaning presents a fourfold range
of possibilities for any intentional modality (wanting, having-to,
being-able-to, knowing, etc.) and any purpose or goal (being,
knowing, wanting, believing, etc. - internal - or saying, doing,
making, etc. - external). An example:
having to do having not to do
(prescription) (prohibition)
not having not to do not having to do
(permission) (optionality)
Of course, there would have to be a performative, directional and
choosing someone (a subjectivity) to have to do, etc. for any of
these alternatives to have meaning, or for the structure of their
semantic relations to make any sense whatsoever.
You also cannot reductionistically polyfurcate interrelated and
inseparable (although distinguishable) components of a system
and treat them as isolated atoms, without disfiguring what you
glean from the rubble beyond all usefulness, and destroying all the
emergent qualities and properties of the synthetic whole (in your
model, not in what it would purport to model).
This just goes to show that you cannot work with structure alone
and be able to work with all the structure there, for some of the
structure is inextricably bound up with the characteristics of human
subjectivity, including intention and signification.
> --
> Robin Faichney
>
>
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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